Text-Based Game 'Lifeline' Named App of the Week, Available for Free

[MacRumors]

Popular text-based adventure game Lifeline was named Apple's App of the Week, and as a result, it's available to download for free for the first time since it launched in April of 2015.

Lifeline is a text-based game that asks players to make life or death decisions to help navigate Taylor, the protagonist, through the storyline. Written by Dave Justus, the story walks players through the aftermath of a crash landing on the moon of an alien planet.

Lifeline is a playable, branching story of survival against all odds. Using your iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch, you will help Taylor make life or death decisions, and face the consequences together.

Lifeline is a deep, immersive story of survival and perseverance, with many possible outcomes. Taylor is relying on YOU.

What's unique about Lifeline is its realtime gameplay. The story progresses in actual real world time, with the game sending players notifications throughout the day to make decisions about where the storyline should go. Players can answer as the notifications come in or catch up on their own timelines.

Lifeline is also notable because it was one the first games to be made available on the Apple Watch. When notifications come in, players can respond on the Apple Watch or directly from the iPhone's Home screen without needing to open the actual game. Since its release, Lifeline has earned 4.5 stars in the App Store with more than 9,000 reviews.

Lifeline will be available for free from the iOS App Store for the next seven days. [Direct Link]

Article Link: Text-Based Game 'Lifeline' Named App of the Week, Available for Free

 

[Jessica Lares]

I'm surprised there hasn't been any knockoffs of it yet. The idea is interesting and could easily be expanded into more genres.

 

[JohnApples]

Cool, I made it in before the cynical comments!

I've never heard of this game before but it does sound pretty interesting. I was always a sucker for those text-based adventure games, but never knew why.

 

[sfrancis928]

Just started playing. Tayler is walking to the crash now. This story is very "Planet of the Apes" so far.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

The realtime aspect sounds both cool and annoying. I don't need or want to play a game throughout the work day.

 

[countryside]

I love it. I have wanted this app for a while, but not enough to pay for it. I just didn't know if it was worth it... I love how it supports Apple Watch.

 

[ttss6]

I beat the game a couple months ago but I definitely recommend it! It's draws you in quickly and work to figure out the storyline that might rescue the stranded astronaut before it's too late. Best iOS game I've ever played for its simplicity and how it can bring out so much imagination with minimal dialogue that keeps you wishing you could speed it up. Download now while it's free!

 

[Speedman100]

I bought this game a while ago. It's very good. It's a no-brainer to get it now that it's free.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

The realtime aspect sounds both cool and annoying. I don't need or want to play a game throughout the work day.

You could just disable notifications for it. It's not like it's so real time that if you don't respond, bad things happen. If you don't respond, it just "saves them up" until you decide to respond. So if you turn off notifications, you can just come back to it in the app and "catch up".

Yeah, it means you can't just sit down and play the game all the way through in one sitting, since it does take real-world time for various events to happen, but neither do you have to play it exactly when the notifications would pop up.

 

[nicho]

now i'm upset. i bought this game 2 months ago but haven't gotten around to playing it. could have just waited and saved the money.

the money in question btw, is 1 Chinese Yuan. i'll let someone else do the conversion.

 

[Kajje]

I've been playing this game since the day mum bought her first cell. I'm now playing Girlfriend version 3.1

 

[Stealthfiction]

The realtime aspect sounds both cool and annoying. I don't need or want to play a game throughout the work day.

You don't need to. You'll hit points in the story where the character needs to go offline to complete a task you convinced him to do, or deal with a threat, or sleep. Then he sends you a message when he's back and waiting for you to reply. Basically when he's waiting, time is effectively stopped. You could come back to it days or weeks later and it just treats it like you've been gone for a few hours.

 

[Oblivious.Robot]

Thanks for the heads up!
Been meaning to buy that game for a while now, you just saved me a buck or two.

 

[Aston441]

It's a knock off of a game from the 80s on the Apple II, which was a knock off of a few old games that were floating around on mainframes since the 60s.

An old concept. Very easy to code.

 

[furi0usbee]

In 10th grade I wrote something like this, though not as complex, in BASIC. It was a go N/S/E/W, talk to people type game. But it was just done in my spare time. Depending on what you said or did or which direction you went, things happened. If text-based games make a comeback, maybe I'll be tempted to write one.

For games like this, you need a better imagination than coding skills. But touch adds another dimension to it. Because you can do some cool things like if you enter a room, and hear someone whispering, you can animate a voice bubble that you must click on, that can say, randomly appear at any part of the screen for a very short time, thus needing to be quick to find the person, presumably in the dark. You can keep it mostly text, but make it interactive with finger input, etc.

 

[talmy]

Free because they now have a sequel out?

I found it boring because it's too linear and many decisions are just random choices.

 

[BuffaloTF]

Interesting. Thinking about it... It's surprising that this hasn't been done yet. A choose-your-own-adventure book in app form. I can't imagine I'm the only one to have blown thru all of them in my library some 25-30 years ago.

 

[Mr. Donahue]

That doesn't sound creepy at all.

 

[Mousse]

The realtime aspect sounds both cool and annoying. I don't need or want to play a game throughout the work day.

You can set it to "fast mode"' to get an instant response, but it breaks the suspension of belief because you're interacting too quickly. It's a pretty good game. A bit too short IMO. Not much replay value though, unless you want to see every possible outcome.

 

[Kevin2055]

It is just a multi-player internet game without graphic.

 

[steve knight]

my blind wife likes it

 

[Kajje]

The first game on the iPhone 6S 128GB that is compatible with a 20 year old Nokia 2110

 

[E.Lizardo]

It's a knock off of a game from the 80s on the Apple II, which was a knock off of a few old games that were floating around on mainframes since the 60s.

An old concept. Very easy to code.

Kind of like books,no? Old concept,easy to write,writing a good one however...

 

[MH01]

Just downloaded it , been ages since I played a text based game

 

[talmy]

The problem with Lifeline as a text based game is that all the choices are binary. Frankly, text based games were far more sophisticated in the 1970's! See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_Cave_Adventure